


Silver Linings

by sElkieNight60



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Fever Dreams, Gen, Hurt Tim Drake, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is a good brother, Protective Batfamily, Se.N, Sick Fic, Tim Drake's Missing Spleen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29674551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sElkieNight60/pseuds/sElkieNight60
Summary: “Well… you look like a skunk.” It was the best he could come up with.Jason rocked back on his heels, threw his hands on his hips and laughed.“Oh, we're throwing insults around now,bird brain.”
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 35
Kudos: 469





	Silver Linings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CKBookish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CKBookish/gifts).



> The prompt here was: Tim + Fever = calling Jason a skunk.

Tim woke up groggy, sweaty, unhappy and generally feeling quite shit. Fairly certain he had a low grade fever, he sat up and pushed away the moist bed-covers, fighting back the wave of vertigo that came with.

It took him a moment to remember why he wasn't at his apartment, but along with the semi-vague recollection of swallowing half Gotham harbor last night and the souvenir chills that had accompanied him post-dip, he recalled simply being too tired to resist when Bruce had pushed him upstairs and instructed him to get a night's worth of rest.

It had been a long time since he'd stayed within the manor walls. Post-Damian living at the Wayne family home, he'd spent more time avoiding the place than in it. Which was funny in its own way, when he thought back to the past. How Wayne Manor had been his sanctuary and refuge during the months of his parents absence.

Between laboured breaths, his stomach roiled and gurgled in protest. At least he was hungry, that was a good sign. Best not to push it too much though, tea and plain toast would probably suffice.

Bare toes begrudged the cold floor as he slipped between the bed-covers, shakily making his way to the door.

Truly, there was nothing worse than being ill. He hated how weak it made him. How horrible he always felt. As a child he'd had many a fever, which was easily attributed to his lithe frame and the slight malnutrition he'd suffered until beginning his life at Wayne manor. At least he knew what to do now though, how to take care of himself when he wasn't well. No need to bother anyone about it.

Every footfall down the hall was a battle against fatigue, every wobbly step took the utmost concentration. Naturally, it was bound to be made more difficult, because the universe never failed to kick him when he was already down.

“You look like shit?”

With a slight frown, Jason stood with arms folded, resting against the kitchen doorframe as Tim padded across the room shivering and shuddering, determined to reach the mugs on the top shelf of the cupboard before allowing himself to rest against the counter. What the question in his tone was, Tim didn't even pretend to know.

Voice entirely lacking the bite he'd meant to project into it, he failed to flash his fangs or bare his colors. “Well… you look like a skunk.” It was the best he could come up with.

The words registered only after they'd made their way out of his mouth. For half a second, the two of them just stood there blinking at each other, both in complete and utter shock. Then, Jason rocked back on his heels, threw his hands on his hips and _laughed._

“ _Oh, we're throwing insults around now, bird brain.”_

Closing his eyes against the amusement, Tim fervently willed away his embarrassment as the heat crawled up into his ears and colored his face in flame. Being sick really was the worst.

“Wow, Timbo, that was lame,” Jason chuckled, wiping away the tears of laughter that had gathered in his eyes. “You must be feeling bad.”

If Jason telegraphed his movements, Tim was too tired to see. One moment he was by the door and the next Tim was caged in, a hand beneath his bangs, checking the temperature of his brow.

With a hiss, he slapped the hand away. _“Don't touch me!”_

The sudden venom, lacking before, but made readily available by Jason's proximity surprised him. It startled Jason too. Enough so that he stumbled back a step. Anger zipped across his face, turning to confusion in a flash. Thankfully, no shock of terrifying green accompanied it.

“―the _hell,_ Tim?”

Fingers digging into the counter behind him, he closed his eyes and took several steadying breaths before reopening them. The fact he got defensive when he was feeling weak was nothing new nor unsurprising. Intellectually he knew it was understandable, but he never failed to feel guilty about it. Jason had tried to murder him once, after all―but it was in the _past_ and it _annoyed_ him because _he was over that._

Except for when he was ill or injured. Then that violent self-reliance and defensiveness reared its head.

Nails scratched the underside of the counter-top. Wood grains buried themselves under his nails. Tim stuttered out some kind of apology.

In return, Jason's frown only deepened. Movement became deliberate. “I just want to check your temperature, okay?”

Tim tensed, then nodded. A calloused palm swept his bangs back for a second time and he froze as cool fingers brushed against his forehead. An icy breeze gusted through the kitchen. He shuddered against the chill.

“Hmm, not good…” Jason murmured, finally pulling his hand away. “You're really burning up, Timbit.”

Graciously, Jason was good enough to take a step back when Tim half-heartedly pushed him away.

“I'm fine,” he said, changing his mind on the tea and deciding that perhaps he needed a stronger dose of caffeine to get him through the day. Snatching up his mug from the counter, he moved over to the coffee pot and began filling it with water. Jason's eyes, narrowed in suspicion, followed him the entire way.

A yawn behind them announced the presence of Bruce, shuffling into the kitchen in his socks with droopy eyes.

“Morning,” he mumbled on an outward huff, going for his own mug and following with the sugar jar. Really, two tablespoons was just too much sugar.

Despite feeling like the walking dead, Tim managed to fire a warning shot by way of exhausted glare when he spotted Jason's mouth wordlessly flapping in the wind from the corner of his eye. Unfortunately, to the effect of nothing.

Jason was faster and Tim was sick, so it really wasn't a surprise when he was beat to the medkit under the sink. The thermometer was between forefinger and thumb in a flash, the somber expression doing little to hide the flash of a grin he caught behind Jason's sober façade.

“Open up,” he demanded, taking the opportunity to shove the damn thermometer down his throat when Tim opened his mouth to let loose a series of colorful expletives. It wasn't hard to overpower him given how hard it was just staying awake and upright.

Bruce blinked owlishly, expression ranging somewhere between confused to surprised.

“What,” he began, “is going on here?”

The thermometer beeped. Jason pulled it out and shook his head, tutting once.

In response, Tim groaned. “It's just a low grade fever,” he insisted.

The flat, disbelieving expression on Jason's face said otherwise.

“Uh-huh,” he returned dryly. “And how many of me are you seeing right now? Is it three or four?”

He just didn't have the energy to argue. Every word out his mouth was hard enough as it was. The slow growing ache in his chest was becoming more pronounced every minute he spent shuddering in the draughty kitchen.

“Just one, you asshole,” he replied, but it deflated into something no louder than a whisper.

Bruce shuffled closer and glanced at the thermometer aloft in Jason's hand. “One-oh-two-point-five doesn't look like a low fever to me, bud,” he agreed, features caving to match the other worried frown. Bruce set down his mug.

Between one blink and the next, hands were around his shoulders, doing an admirable job of propping him up though he tried not to lean to heavily into them. He wasn't weak and he didn't need coddling.

“Oh-oh-two-point-five isn't even that bad,” he groused without conviction. “I've had worse. I'm not a kid, I can look after myself.”

Bruce was leading him somewhere now and Jason, unfortunately, was following. When they picked up Dick, he wasn't quite sure.

“You want company, bud?” Bruce asked gently, rubbing his shoulder as they stumbled god-knew-where. “Or do you just want peace and quiet?”

Struggling forward, one foot after the other, he knew he should go up to his room and get dressed for work―or at the very least call in sick, but right now that seemed like a monumentally impossible task.

“You don't have to stay,” he managed, breathing through water. “I'm okay on my own.”

“Nuh-uh, none of that,” supplied Jason unhelpfully, sidling up alongside. Tim fell onto a couch. The walk to the living room was a blur.

Dick looked blurry when he nodded. Tim touched at the unexpected wetness at the corners of his eyes. Oh. Well, a fever could do that. It could bring emotions dangerously close to the surface. He didn't even know why he was crying.

Bruce pulled a blanket out from somewhere and Jason helped him settle. Dick curled up on one side, tucking his feet between the couch cushions and Bruce pulled the blanket over them before squeezing in on his right. Jason settled at the foot of the couch without complaint, reaching for the remote.

This was pathetic. Tim felt pathetic. He could manage just fine on his own.

At some point, he must have fallen asleep, because he woke in starts and bursts to an ever changing guard. At one point he found his head was in Cass' lap. _'_ _H_ _mp?'_ rolled off his dull, unmoving mouth at the new information, but was swiftly hushed with rhythmic fingers scratching lightly over his scalp.

Later, although Tim didn't know exactly when, Alfred's clear voice interrupted his restless dreams. A voice mused on the kinds of respiratory infections one could pick up in the bay as Alfred's too-close voice decided his fever was only getting worse.

Dusk, dawn, up, down, Tim couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. One minute Jason was sitting by his feet drinking coffee, the next Bruce was on the floor beside him, a port glass in hand.

In between it all he walked empty halls and fell to his knees between the corpses of his friends and felt the sting of his mother's palm and the taste of blood on his tongue.

 _The Damian shoved him_ and he plummeted down, down, down. Jason emerged out of the shadows and smiled at him behind green-lenses. He cried for Dick, for Cass, but Dick never came and Cass walked away.

And Bruce… he just never showed.

“ _I'm right here buddy.”_ A hand brushed through his hair. _It wasn't real, it wasn't real. Just a fever dream._ A sob rattled its way up and out of his chest. It burned and seized his lungs as he greedily sucked in air, only to have another burst its way free.

_Bruce wasn't real. Bruce was dead and Tim was in this godforsaken desert helping Ra's of all people, bleeding out inside the mouth of this stupid cave._

“I don't want to die,” he sobbed, taking in the bodies of the two assassins already gone from this world, their deaths brutal. _He couldn't die now, he had to prove Dick wrong, he had to get Bruce back because what was the point in living if the only family had ever cared for him was gone?_

A voice hushed him. Or maybe it was just the desert wind. _“You're okay, Tim, I'm right here with you, see?”_

There was nothing to see. Just this big, empty house. Mrs. Mac was gone for the day. Tim annoyed her anyway, she was just here to get paid. That was okay, he had his camera and he had Batman and Robin, _but Damian was Robin now and did he even have the right to feel hurt and angry at Dick for tearing it away from him? It was the only thing he had left to cling to. Kon was dead, Stephanie was gone. But Robin had never been his in the first place._

“Fancy running into you here, _replacement.”_

 _I'm not a replacement,_ he wanted to scream. The words never came, because they were untrue. They died on his tongue. Tim Drake the stand in. Tim Drake the stand in for Robin and the stand in for a son. _His own parents couldn't wait to get away from him._ That was all they ever did. Leave him in this big, old house on the hill. When would it end? If they all forgot about him would he fade away? If a tree fell in the forest, but nobody was there to hear it―.

“ _I need an ice-pack, Dick, he's too hot.”_

“ _Is… is Drake…?”_

“ _Will one of you go get Alfred?”_

When would it be _his_ turn? Everyone always left him. When would it be Tim's turn to leave them behind? _“No one's going anywhere, Tim,”_ Bruce said, like he meant it. He might have too, but it didn't matter. Bruce had left him once, promises from a dead man meant nothing.

“Tim…” someone whispered by his ear, a sharp inhalation followed by hurt. _That was all he ever did._

There was a hand on his face and a knife in his gut. They were going to perform an autopsy while he was still alive. Splay him open, see what made him tick. The joke was on them, they'd already taken everything. _“We had to perform an emergency operation to remove your spleen,” Ra's said, unfazed, like performing a splenectomy was something the League did on a daily basis._

“Why is he talking about his spleen?”

“… _get Leslie. Now.”_

“ _Father?”_

“ _Bruce, what's wrong?”_

Why was he so cold? The harbor was freezing, why was he out here again? _The wind whistled through his hair. “Red Robin, come in.” Two fingers reached up for his comm. “I'm here, Batman.” An acknowledging huff. “Are you in position?” The domino auto-zoomed for him as he narrowed his eyes on the two men moving cargo from a van to a plain storage unit. “Yes and I have movement. I'm going in.”_ He silenced the comm before Batman could protest. He wasn't a child. He could do this on his own. Besides, it was a routine mission, _no risk of losing his spleen tonight._

The world faded again. When light pierced behind his eyeballs his head swam and he groaned.

“ _Infection,”_ someone said. His wrist burned. There was hand wrapped around his arm. Too fragile to touch, like he was one of his mother's precious vases, the objects she'd always cared more about than him. _He'd prefer broken over unused. A child's plaything over a sculpture._

“Shhhh, honey,” said his mother's warm voice. She was stroking his forehead and humming. It lulled him into a daze. _It couldn't be real. None of it was real. Janet Drake had been many things, but not this. “―need to get him to a real hospital, Bruce, the clinic isn't equipped for this.”_

 _No. Not the hospital. Hospitals meant questions and paperwork._ Where'd you get this scar, kiddo? Your daddy-o treatin' you right?

“No… hospitals,” he wheezed into the blackness. It felt like a coffin. Maybe he was already dead. Just like Jason, walking around. Maybe he'd wake up with skunk hair too. Like that cartoon caricature in Bambi. Tim would make a good skunk.

A hand curled around his. “We'll get you your own skunk stripe, Timmers,” said a voice with a snort, but then it cracked. Amusement turned to worry turned to fear. The voice dropped to a whisper. “Just. You don't have to die for it, okay, please, _please,_ Tim, god you're―”

 _It's okay,_ he said to no one. _It's going to be okay._ The hand around his own squeezed back.

An uncomfortable itch in his nose woke him. Tim blinked into consciousness―not in his apartment or even in the manor―but surrounded by the white walls of a hospital.

Most surprising of all, however, was Damian asleep with his head resting on the foot of Tim's bed.

Next in his immediate line of sight was Jason, already blinking at him like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. A soft utterance of his name was all the warning he got.

Jason got up and out of his chair, kneecaps clicking with age as he straightened his legs. “You're awake.” The source of his itchy nose was soon identified when his nasal cannula was forcibly adjusted around his ear.

“You look like shit?” The words burned harshly on the way out, his throat screaming with protest, every syllable scratching along his raw tongue.

Jason smiled his soft smile. The sad one. The one that bled relief and worry intermingled.

“How long was I out?”

“Almost two days.”

_That long?_

“You really had us worried, Tim.” And the truth of that was right there, scribbled all over Jason's horribly open and honest face.

He didn't know what to say. Somehow _sorry_ didn't feel like it would cut it. So he changed tac.

“The others,” he began, then stopped, Initially intending to ask where they were, but then suddenly realizing he didn't even know if they'd come to the hospital at all. It would be embarrassing to assume, but infinitely worse to receive confirmation.

Unfortunately, he didn't need to finish the sentence for Jason to understand the question. “Bruce just got up to go to the bathroom, Dick went off to get coffee and Cass is just in the hall getting something from the vending machine.”

 _Oh._ Well, it seemed silly now. Especially with Damian snoring at the foot of his bed. As if Damian would come with Jason on his own.

Perched on the edge of the bed, Jason was careful not to jostle the unconscious boy at the end of it. “Please don't ever scare us like that again,” he said. A ragged hand ran over his exhausted face. Tim briefly wondered if he'd slept at all.

“Why didn't you tell us about your spleen?”

Words didn't register at first. _Spleen?_

Jason shook his head and lightly cleared his throat, turning his gaze to the wall like he couldn't look at Tim for this. _And if that didn't sting a little._

“Doc said you had some kind of very specific sepsis.” Suddenly Jason seemed to change his mind. Head whipping back again, two piercing eyes stabbing him through pointedly. “Leslie said you were missing your spleen!”

“Oh,” he began loquaciously, feeling a tad chastised by the two holes Jason seemed determined to bore into his skull. “Yeah, I. It was over a year ago.”

The words had the effect of popping Jason like a pin to a balloon. Sucking in a shuddering breath, he held the air tight a moment and then released it all in one go.

“Why didn't you say anything? Update your medical records at the very least.”

There were no good responses, so he didn't bother trying to excuse his behavior.

“It never seemed like a good time,” he replied with a shrug.

Jason's jaw tensed. “It never will be, Timmers,” he grit out, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “If there's one thing I've learned in this family it's that it'll never be a good time, but you know what? You just have to do it anyway.”

With a sigh, he cast his eyes to the window. _That was easy for Jason to say. Headstrong, beloved son._ For Tim, life was different.

A finger flicked him in the forehead.

“I can hear you thinking, dumb-ass. Stop it.” Jason said, tutting. “You do too much of it.”

In response, he rolled his eyes. “Well maybe you just don't do enough of it,” he quipped back. It came out flat and dry and humorless, but surprisingly, the other boy laughed anyway.

“Skunk head,” Tim snorted when his croaky voice would be heard over the escaping chuckles.

Jason scoffed. “Bird brain,” he returned happily.

Being ill was still the worst, but all in all, at least this time it had come with a silver lining.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried a slightly different writing style for this and I'm not sure that I like it. Let me know your thoughts?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
